Desktop publishing as I see it and do it

I buy the common definition that DTP systems run on personal
computers and have a WYSIWYG user interface. However, my
definition of personal computers also includes the desktop
work-stations (e.g., from SUN, Apollo, etc.) that supplanted mini
computers on the way to what we now know as personal computers. My
definition of desktop publishing also includes use by amateur as
well as professional document layout people. First professional
designers and writers took document composition away from
professional book and newspaper typesetters; and now small
businesses, organizations staffed by volunteers, and anyone
wanting to produce a quality document at their kitchen table for
printing of a PDF at Kinkos is doing desktop publishing. The above
leads me to categorize Word as a DTP when it is used for
publishing rather than for word processing for unpublished
letters, inter-office memos, etc., especially since Word is the
required input for many publishing endeavors.

For my own (extensive) DTP work, I use LaTeX which is not WYSIWYG,
but has advantages in my situation over some other DTPs from Word
to Quark and InDesign. (Note: LaTeX's underlying TeX engine has
been running on IBM and other personal computers since 1984. Also
note, the perception of many people that TeX was only for people
doing math work is shortsighted; yes, Knuth created TeX to typeset
books with a lot of math, but TeX was also better than many other
systems in terms of its general typesetting generally.)

I starting using LaTeX more than 20 years ago because it has a
non-proprietary, visible, well documented, and basically
unchanging markup language; thus, I would never again have to
worry about getting "incompatible file type" messages or deal with
format converters in the face of new software releases. Also, TeX
is free, unlike Quark and InDesign. (By the way, I never write math or science; I suppose my
use of LaTeX is like that of many people from the humanities who
use TeX and its derivatives.)

Over time I have come to appreciate other aspects of LaTeX that
make it superior for me to other DTP systems. (1) With LaTeX I can
specify layout more precisely than with WYSIWYG systems. (2) Because LaTeX editing is done in an editor separate from LaTeX, I
can use a powerful and work-saving text editing system (e.g.,
Emacs) rather than being limited to the capabilities of a WYSIWYG
editor. (3) I can write programs in other text processing systems
that generate LaTeX markup for printing, e.g., from data taken out
of databases or to repeatedly generate certain sequences of
typesetting commands. (4) In my experience, LaTeX is definitely
the most productive when an overall document consists of many text
and image files, inter-file cross-references, references and
notes, etc. (5) There is an exceptionally helpful and knowledgable
worldwide on-line user community for LaTeX and the other TeX
derivatives. And, being effectively open source, there is a constant stream of
new LaTeX capabilities coming out of the user community (without fundamental change in the
user interview).